


Hijack Week December 2016: Seven Deadly Sins

by EavingMal



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Gluttony, Hijack Week, Lust, M/M, Pride, Seven Deadly Sins, Stories are totally unconnected, envy - Freeform, greed - Freeform, sloth - Freeform, wrath - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-08 18:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8856580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EavingMal/pseuds/EavingMal
Summary: A place to put my fics for HiJack week December 2016. Any content warnings will be given for the individual fics, since they aren't connected at all and have wildly different content.Some of them are in the Time Flies-verse modern AU, some aren't. Some I don't even know what the timeline is, don't ask me, I just dispense the fluff and angst.





	1. Lust

**Author's Note:**

> Day 1 - Lust  
> Hiccup and Jack used to be a couple, and it didn't end well. Four years later, they meet up again in a bar.  
> Inspired by Closer by The Chainsmokers, because I could not get the accursed song out of my head for love nor money.  
> Content: Implied sex

Four years.

It had been four years since Hiccup had last seen Jack.

It had not been an easy parting. There had been arguments, shouting. Things hadn’t exactly been thrown, but they’d left a swathe of paper torn to pieces in restless fingers, pixelated aliens shot dead with blood splatters and high-score achievements in their wake. A series of strangers in bars who were not each other, but who were warm and kissed like they cared, even if they called the wrong name and that was alright because Hiccup knew half the time he’d called the wrong name, too, and they’d both understood going in what this was and it hadn’t mattered.

And now, Jack was here.

It was the end of a long week – Hiccup juggling school and work now, one degree passed, but that only meant more study, more late nights and numbers and essays because one degree was never enough these days, and because for some reason his father supported his son staying behind a study desk as if that were safer than the real world. The work was a stepping stone, the kind of job you stayed in because you needed the contacts and the money and technically it was where you needed to be but it wasn’t where you wanted to go. Yes, as his friends often said, usually when he’d turned down another night of partying in favour of solitude with his cat (against his rental agreement but screw that. Nobody had to know) and his books, Hiccup was going places.

Right now, he was going to the bar and wondering how close exactly he should stand to the man with white hair he knew when they were just, relatively speaking, boys, and whether Jack had noticed him.

But of course Jack had noticed him. Jack always noticed Hiccup.

Hiccup said he’d get the first round, so the others weren’t nearby to notice the look he was giving Jack at the bar, weren’t there to talk him into or out of the conversation he was surely (and surely not) about to have.

Jack had changed in four years. Hiccup nearly hadn’t recognised him without his blue hoodie, once nearly inseparable from his body (only that wasn’t true – Hiccup had done it on more than one occasion, and Jack had been perfectly willing to let it go back then). He wore a button-down shirt and slacks now, shirt untucked under his waistcoat. Hiccup could see the faint marks on his lips and nose where once, there used to be piercings (piercings Hiccup once knew every inch of, and every lump of scar tissue). The earrings had stayed, Hiccup noticed, the corner of a temporary tattoo shiny and black peeking above the unbuttoned collar of Jack’s crisp shirt. Jack wore only temporary tattoos, but he covered his body with them. Piercings, he said, he could change the jewellery in, could take rings out and put them back in. But tattoos he couldn’t change. He was too indecisive, he always said, to get a real tattoo. The thought of getting something that permanent made his skin itch.

Hiccup leaned on the bar and recited the drink order. The barman nodded and fetched it all while Hiccup pulled out his little plastic card and with a swipe the money was gone and the drinks were all his. He nearly didn’t say anything, but while he was picking up the drinks, Jack said, “You got professional, Hiccy.”

Hiccup nodded. He didn’t try to pretend that he had only just noticed Jack, because Jack must have already noticed him staring. “So did you,” he said.

Jack plucked at the shirt, grimacing. “Job interview,” he said. “Couldn’t decide whether to change or go get a drink first. This won.”

“That good, huh?” Hiccup asked with a raised eyebrow and Jack smiled his dazzling white smile and for a moment, it tipped Hiccup into a vortex of nostalgia, of that smile and those teeth and just for a moment, he forgot that four years had happened.

“Should have said something earlier,” Hiccup said. “I would have bought you one.”

“Aren’t we a bit young for old times’ sake?”

Hiccup shrugged. Sometimes he didn’t feel very young. With an ease born of practice, he picked up the drinks off the bar.

“Come join us,” he said.

Jack hesitated, looked at his drink, and nodded. “Alright,” he said.

 

~

 

At the table with Hiccup’s friends, Jack was greeted with silence and then caution, but as the jokes started, the mood eased and by the end of the night they spilled out of the hotel bar. Hiccup, feeling alcohol coursing through his system, took a moment to look at the stars and marvel at the brightness. When he looked back down, Astrid was rolling her eyes, but Jack was looking at him like he was remembering a forgotten dream. Hiccup didn’t know whether it was the alcohol or Jack’s blue eyes, but his skin was warm against the cool air.

“Coming?” Astrid asked.

Hiccup nodded, then paused. “Jack?” he asked.

Jack shook his head. “I’m not going home just yet,” he said.

“Maybe I’ll stay out for a bit, too,” Hiccup said.

Astrid pressed her lips together, and Hiccup knew he’d get an earful  later, but that didn’t matter right now. Fishlegs was supporting Snotlout, who was doing his best to melt into a puddle on the pavement, and the twins were arguing about something that made no  sense except to them.

Astrid sighed. “Go on,” she said.

Hiccup nodded – though he didn’t need her permission, why should he care whether she approved or not, this was his life, and he could spend a Saturday night wherever he chose, couldn’t he – and started off.

He and Jack walked for a while in the cool night air, and then Jack ran a hand through his hair. “I need different clothes,” he said. “I won’t last the night in these.”

Hiccup nodded. “Sure,” he said, because he wasn’t bothered with what they did or where they went, he just wanted to remember for a while.

“My friends seemed glad to catch up with you,” Hiccup said.

Jack chuckled. “It was nice to see them again,” he said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, though, but I hope I don’t have to talk to them again.”

Hiccup frowned. “I thought that went well,” he said.

Jack sighed and shrugged. “It’s no big deal,” he said, and refused to elaborate further.

 

~

 

He made Hiccup wait for him at a dingy bar where Hiccup bought a beer and drank it slowly, holding onto the buzz for as long as possible. When Jack returned, he looked much more like the Jack Hiccup remembered – crumpled T-shirt and faded jeans, temporary tattoos up and down his arms, looking too small in his clothes, but every so often his shirt folded against his skin, and Hiccup remembered what was under there, the shape of the body underneath. He couldn’t stop staring.

Jack smiled at him and told him it was flattering. Hiccup blushed and looked away, but not for long. Jack bought a shot and downed it quickly – “to catch up”, he said, and on the way out he grabbed Hiccup’s ass – a brief but deliberate touch, and Hiccup, though he was surprised, found he didn’t mind.

“You shouldn’t try to match me,” Hiccup said. “I think I weigh twice what you do now. It’s not like when we were scrawny teenagers together.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Jack said. “Practice makes up for natural talent.”

“You say that like you don’t think I’ve had that much practice,” Hiccup replied.

At the next bar, lurid and purple lights and drinks in neon, Jack insisted they order ridiculous drinks with dirty-sounding names and made bedroom eyes at Hiccup while he sucked on the straw. Hiccup laughed and wondered whether Jack were really flirting with him or just pretending.

“Where was the job interview?” Hiccup asked finally.

Jack’s face twisted up and Hiccup remembered what Jack was like when he was angry, suddenly, remembering the flare of temper and the sullen silences. Jack might have been thin, but his tiny body held more passion than anyone else Hiccup had ever met. So much it overflowed.

Hiccup was passionate, too, but quietly and alone, passionate in evenings where he forgot to sleep and in problems solved over weeks and weeks of study. That kind of passion didn’t overflow easily and it didn’t escape much, and by and large Hiccup was content with leaving it to fester inside him, pouring it into study and diagrams and occasionally pouring it into beer bottles and drinking it down as he walked from bar to bar – never alone, but usually feeling desperately lonely.

“Nowhere important,” Jack said. “I don’t think I got the job.”

Hiccup nodded and bought the next round. Jack made him order a Cocksucking Cowboy and laughed when Hiccup sighed and shook his head and ordered the drink from the barman who had heard the name so many times it had lost all humour for him, which made Hiccup feel a little better.

When they finally stumbled out of the bar, Hiccup realised that he couldn’t stop now.

“Let’s go to my place,” Hiccup said, and Jack agreed.

When they got to Hiccup’s house, Jack chuckled.

“Do I recognise that mattress?”

Hiccup flushed. “You do,” he said.

“Don’t tell me you never gave that thing back.”

Hiccup shook his head. “I haven’t spoken to that roommate since.”

Jack shook his head. “That’s not like you,” he said.

“It was me, once,” Hiccup pointed out.

 

~

 

Hiccup never asked why Jack didn’t call in the four years he was gone, and Jack never volunteered the information. Hiccup supposed it didn’t matter. Jack was bad for him – they’d proved that. This wouldn’t last.

But Hiccup saw more and more of Jack, in bars and coffee shops, in slacks and button down shirts and band T-shirts from concerts nearly older than Jack was, Hiccup in business casual because there wasn’t anything else left in his wardrobe anymore.

One time Hiccup bought them enough drinks for the evening and Jack drove them out of the city, nearly two hours away, and they pulled over on the side of the road and sat on the roof of the car watching the stars. Hiccup had already planned to call in sick the next that day. He never took sick days. They would let him have this one.

Hiccup knew Jack didn’t have a job, and hadn’t for a long time. “I’m amazed you could afford the car,” he said, when he’d had too much alcohol for tact, and too much of Jack to keep himself from being open.

Jack was not offended. He shrugged and said, “Nobody’s taken it away from me yet.”

When the drinks were gone, with all night ahead of them, they drove the car a little further off the road and hung their shirts over the windows to make the back seat a little cave of privacy.

“I can’t remember why we broke up,” Jack confessed. “I remember that we fought, but for the life of me I can’t remember what it was about.”

“I can,” Hiccup said. “About everything.”

Jack shook his head. “That was just the outlet,” he said. “We fought about everything, but I can’t remember the _reason_. Does that make sense?”

It did, and Hiccup didn’t want to admit it but he didn’t remember the reason either. He didn’t want to talk about it, either. He leaves tooth marks down Jack’s shoulder, covered by the tattoos except where the plastic pictures flake off in his mouth and he has to spit them out. Then there are little holes in the pictures up and down Jack’s neck, purple and red underneath them. Jack nearly pulls the seat covers off as he both tries to get further away from Hiccup’s hands and tongue and closer to them. It's like he can’t decide what he wants, fingers like a cool breeze and bites so hard Hiccup wonders if he’ll ever let go.

When they finished, Jack drove them home through the sunrise. In the lazy morning, between dozing in Hiccup’s apartment, Jack gave him a temporary tattoo. A dragon, on his shoulder blade. Underneath his work-appropriate button-down shirt, Hiccup smiled every time he felt the sticky plastic tug on his skin, and thought of Jack.

 

~

 

They had their first argument five months after Jack arrived. It was in Hiccup’s apartment (again). It was about Jack’s nocturnal habits, up and moving while Hiccup is trying to sleep or study. Jack said he was restless and couldn’t stay still. Hiccup said Jack needed to take some responsibility, to realise that they can’t just stay up all night every night. Not now that Hiccup has a job and study to do.

Jack threw his balled up button shirt at Hiccup and shouts that he’s trying, and listed all the job interviews he’s been to, tears of frustration in his eyes. Hiccup said that wasn’t the point, but when Jack demanded to know what the point was, found that he couldn’t answer.

That was it, then. Back to where they started, and where Hiccup had always known they were going to end up. Astrid was going to gloat. She’d been warning Hiccup about this from the start.

But then Jack stepped forward and kissed him, and Hiccup melted in his mouth.

“I decided something,” Jack said.

“What’s that?”

“If I don’t know why I’m arguing with you about something, I don’t want to argue anymore.”

Hiccup rested his forehead against Jack’s. “But Jack, we always argue.”

“Let’s not,” Jack said. “Let’s just try it, for once.”

Hiccup put his hands on Jack’s shoulders. “But what do we have?” he asked. “Jack, what do we have in the long run? We get together, we fall into bed, then we argue. If you take away the arguments, there’s just the sex. Lust isn’t the basis for a long-term relationship.”

Jack shrugged. “No,” he said. “Not a basis. But it could be a start.”


	2. Gluttony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you bite off more than you can swallow. Giving Jack coffee seemed like such a good idea at the time...

_ 11:00am _

Hiccup waits for Jack in the café. Honestly, it’s usually him who’s late, so he’s patient, reading his textbook while he waits.

Jack arrives fairly soon, and looks thoughtfully at the counter.

“Hey,” Hiccup says, thinking that perhaps Jack hasn’t noticed him. Jack waves back absently, and Hiccup realises that his white-haired boyfriend has something else on his mind.

He waits for Jack to tear his eyes away from the board, and stands up to give him a long hug. Exam time is always stressful, and if Hiccup didn’t have his coffee dates with Jack, he probably wouldn’t be able to handle it.

Jack sits down and stretches on the chair, then points one slender finger at the book. “Hic,” he said. “What’s the rule?”

“You were late!” Hiccup protests, but he puts the book away. The rule is no studying on dates.

Jack always says he thought that should have been obvious to any normal person.

Hiccup always brings his books anyway, just in case.

“What do you want?” Hiccup asks, standing up. “Green tea? Hot chocolate?”

“Actually,” Jack says thoughtfully. “I’ve never tried coffee before. I think I’ll try a coffee.”

Hiccup shrugs, and goes to place their orders.

 

_ 11:10am _

Two hot mugs of coffee are set in front of them. Hiccup passes Jack a handful of sugar packets, knowing his boyfriend’s sweet tooth. Jack rips the tops off them, pours them all into the coffee immediately, and stirs.

“Aren’t you going to try it first?” Hiccup asks. “What if you put too much sugar in?”

Jack gives him a Look, and Hiccup chuckles.

“Right, right. Silly question.” Hiccup starts to drink his coffee, feeling it warm him and invigorate him. He lives for their coffee dates once exams hit.

Jack is sipping his coffee thoughtfully. Hiccup laughs at him.

“You’re allowed to say you don’t like it,” he says. “It’s OK.”

“No,” Jack says, then adds another packet of sugar to the coffee.

 

_ 12:00pm _

Jack’s bouncing leg is starting to get beyond irritating. The coffee cups are long since drained – Hiccup is on his second.

“For Odin’s sake, Jack,” Hiccup groans, finishing his coffee in a few long gulps. “There, let’s go somewhere.”

“Alright!” Jack jumps up quickly. “Where are we going?”

Hiccup snorts. “For the longest walk possible before I need to go to class. You’re vibrating, Jack.”

“Am not,” Jack protests, just loudly enough to make Hiccup wince and the heads on the next couple of tables turn towards them. “I feel great!”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Hiccup says.

 

_ 1:00pm _

Hiccup’s class is about to start, and Jack has gone from bouncing to wide-eyed, tense alertness. He’s chatting and gesturing, and it’s all Hiccup can do to not get hit by the staff, let alone get a word in edgeways.

He leaves Jack at the door to the class with a firm kiss and instructions to go home, and that Hiccup would see him that evening.

Once Hiccup is in the class, he watches Jack Frost fly away from the university. When Hiccup isn’t with him, normal adults tend to overlook Jack, so he doesn’t draw a single eye as he rockets up into the sky.

Hiccup turns his attention to the lecture, and sketches a dragon in the margins of his notes.

 

_ 5:09pm _

Hiccup walks into the little apartment he rents and Jack spends most of his time in.

Jack is nowhere to be found, but that doesn’t mean Hiccup can’t tell that he’s been home.

Everything is a mess. The couches have been moved. There’s something in the oven. The rest of the kitchen is nearly totally obscured by flour.

The couches must have been moved after that little adventure, because there are floury handprints over them, too.

Hiccup, a little afraid, looks up.

Yes, on the ceiling, too.

He rubs his eyes with one hand. Of all the disadvantages he thought there’d be to having a boyfriend who could fly …

He stepped over the crumpled rug and followed the mad giggling into their room.

It was … well, better than the kitchen, he supposed. At least there wasn’t any flour.

Jack was sitting on their bed with one of Hiccup’s shirts, sewing madly.

“Jack,” Hiccup said.

“Babe!” Jack greeted him, and jumped up, dropping the sewing and leaping over to tackle him. “You’re home! I’ve been so bored!”

“Looks to me like you’ve been plenty busy. Jack, what are you doing?”

“WELL,” Jack says, ticking off the list on his fingers. “First I decided that I was going to make you a surprise, so I thought we’d have a movie night. But you need snacks for a movie night and that’s when I made biscuits or maybe slice I think it might have started as one and ended up as the other? They’re nearly done by the way, I should check them –”

Hiccup catches Jack as Jack starts to move past him. “Finish one thought before you go following the next one. So you made biscuits. And then you decided to move the couches?”

“Yes, because I thought they might be better if they were facing the television a bit differently, and the biscuit slice thing was taking so _long_ to cook, so I had the time.”

“Uh-huh. And now you’ve … what have you done to my shirt?”

“Uh,” Jack glances over. “Not sure anymore. I started wanting to make one of those cool ripped shirts like you see on television, but you’re bigger than me and that old shirt is the only one I could find that you might not mind me using, so I started trying to make it a bit smaller …”

Hiccup picks up the shirt. Jack somehow found a way to sew the side seams into the opposite sleeves. Pieces of it are strewn across the bed, scissors still lying discarded on the pillow.

“Um.  It didn’t work out,” Jack says.

“I can see that,” Hiccup says.

 

_ 6:15pm _

Jack’s biscuit-slice-thing has been rescued from the oven, and to Hiccup’s surprise, they seem to have turned out rather well.

Then he sees that Jack has used half the sugar in the house and he starts to feel slightly less charitable towards the biscuits.

He has forced Jack to take a shower, and uses the precious minutes to clean up.

Jack runs out in just the towel, still dripping. “Hic, babe, I just thought of someth – hey, you cleaned everything!”

Hiccup nods. “You made a hell of a mess,” he says, folding his arms.

“Hiccy, you should have let me help,” Jack says, running over and wrapping his arms around Hiccup. Hiccup feels the shower water soaking through his shirt and sighs.

“I made the mess, you should have made me help clean it,” Jack insists.

“Next time,” Hiccup says. “Now get back into the bathroom. You’re soaking the carpet.”

Jack jumps and walks back to the bathroom with exaggerated caution.

 

_ 10:35pm _

“Jack, I’m going to bed.”

Thankfully, Jack has calmed down enough to watch a movie without getting up every five minutes or jiggling his leg constantly, for which Hiccup is eternally grateful.

“Aw, but it’s only, what, seven?”

“Jack, it’s half past ten. I have class tomorrow!”

“Please? One more movie?”

“No. Watch it yourself.”

Hiccup takes himself to bed. He hears the start of the movie playing, and drifts off to sleep.

 

_ 12:10am _

Hiccup wakes up to feel Jack slide into bed next to him.

There goes his damn leg again. Hiccup traps it under his own to stop Jack twitching and tries to get some sleep.

 

_ 12:15am _

“Hiccup,” Jack groans. “Why does my head hurt?”

“Caffeine crash,” Hiccup murmurs sleepily. “Get some aspirin and go to sleep. It’ll be gone in the morning.”

“I feel weird.”

“Caffeine crash.”

“My eyeballs feel heavy. I think my heart’s doing something to my lungs.”

“Caffeine crash.”

“Hiccup, I hate this.”

“Yup. Go to sleep, Jack.”

 

_ 1:15am _

“Hiccup, it’s not going away!”

“Get some aspirin, Jack, and if you wake me up one more time, I swear by Odin’s missing eye …”

Jack gets up. Hiccup hears the tap, and the crinkle of the plastic bubbles, and then Jack comes back and curls up with him again.

 

_ 3:15am _

“Hiccup, I can’t sleep.”

“Jack, that’s it. Get out of bed. You’re sleeping on the couch.”

Jack doesn’t argue, just goes sheepishly.

Hiccup hears the television start again, before he drifts off to sleep.

 

_ 8:00am _

Hiccup, bleary-eyed and completely unrested, wakes to the television still stuck on the menu of the DVD Jack had watched.

Jack is sound asleep on the couch, sprawled and drooling on the armrest. Hiccup sighs, and starts to make himself his morning coffee and some breakfast.

 

_ 8:12am _

Hiccup sits down with his breakfast and coffee at the table in just enough time to hear a groan from the couch.

“Morning, sunshine,” Hiccup says, sipping the coffee.

“Why,” Jack groans.

“Because I love you, but I’m still petty at heart.”

“Is that coffee I smell?”

“There’s not enough for you, and not enough gold in the world to bribe me into making you a cup.”

“Don’t want it,” Jack said plaintively. “Water?”

Hiccup, after the day before, is sorely tempted to tell him to get his own damn water, but he stands up and fetches Jack water in the biggest glass they have.

“Have I mentioned I love you lately?” Jack asks, gulping it down.

“Always,” Hiccup says. “But I think you owe me a few more after yesterday.”

“I love you,” Jack says, then groans and flops dramatically down on the couch.

“What time are your classes?” Jack asks Hiccup.

Hiccup checks the clock. Oh god. “In an hour,” he says.

Jack’s hand reaches up over the couch and grasps at thin air. Hiccup sighs, pushes his breakfast aside and joins Jack on the couch.

“So tired,” Jack says. “Think I got a half an hour of sleep.”

“Me, too,” Hiccup says pointedly.

“I’m sorry,” Jack says, covering his face. “I couldn’t help it!”

“Hence why you slept on the couch,” Hiccup says, and yawns so wide his jaws crack.

“Don’t go to class today?” Jack asks.

Hiccup is exhausted. It’s sorely tempting.

Ah, it’s not like he hasn’t read the whole textbook already anyway. He slips down onto the couch, leaning his head on the armrest, and Jack lies down on top of him.

This time, they both sleep soundly.


	3. Greed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Greed  
> Content Warnings: None
> 
> Hiccup has always been the runt of the Viking litter, and he wants everything from Jack that it's not fair to ask Jack to give.

The runt of the litter. The smallest. You saw it sometimes in animals. Not dragons – reptiles didn’t seem to have the problem. But cats, dogs. One baby pushed out and left to die, unable to keep up with the pace of its siblings, who grew strong on milk it could never quite reach.

Hiccup thought a lot about that. Dragons didn’t do it. Sheep had one child at a time – always enough milk for one or two lambs who didn’t even need to fight for space for it. By all rights, humans should be the same.

And yet, there he was, with a name that meant mistake, short and thin – scrawny – and very definitely the runt of the Viking litter that he couldn’t quite convince himself didn’t exist.

Toothless helped. Toothless who was always going flying with him and didn’t mind when he skipped dragon races and didn’t care that he was small and didn’t eat enough (as his father was constantly reminding him). Toothless understood, but didn’t speak and that in itself was a comfort, because he saw the reptile’s looks sometimes and he knew that Toothless knew. Knew what, he could never quite put his finger on, but the useless lizard knew something and didn’t like it and that made Hiccup feel stripped bare, no matter what he tried to tell himself.

And then there was Jack.

Jack who had staff and dressed in brown cloaks that didn’t quite match his blue eyes and white hair. Jack the only person Hiccup had ever known who was skinnier than he was, only on Jack it was slender, not scrawny. Jack wore it well. Hiccup never had.

Hiccup knew it was wrong of him, that it wasn’t healthy, but by Thor he wished he could keep Jack all to himself.

Jack might not have been confident under the surface – Hiccup had had enough private talks with him to know that – but by Odin he could fake it. He was free with words and with jokes and he played with children like he was focussing only on them and Hiccup never realised before how much it could hurt watching someone else have so much fun.

They have different jobs during the day, and it’s painful in the mornings. Hiccup some mornings, when he can’t stop himself, makes a sleepy grab for Jack’s waist.

“Don’t go,” he says.

Jack laughs like Hiccup is joking and kisses him. But Hiccup has never been more serious about anything than he is about those two words.

He never said anything to Jack about this, though. He feels like admitting it would make him admit a lot of other things, too, like how he wants some days to hold Jack down so he can’t leave, and spend forever just the two of them, Jack all his and nobody else’s. Hiccup doesn’t even like admitting that to himself, because it makes him feel guilty. It’s not fair to Jack – Jack needs to be his own person, and so does Hiccup. It’s not healthy to want the sorts of things Hiccup catches himself wanting.

And he so desperately needs his relationship with Jack to be healthy. He needs it to be right. He needs it to _last_.

So he tells Jack “Thor almighty, you look gorgeous,” and what he really means is _you look so much better than me_. He tells Jack “You’re amazing,” and what he means is _I don’t deserve you_. He means _I shouldn’t have you_. He means _I don’t know how to be for you what you are for me_.

He means _I’m scared_.

He catches Jack staring at him one night, and he has to look away, down into the pillow.

Jack chuckles, and calls him adorable, and a dork, and kisses him gently and Hiccup feels his arms start to shake.

Jack notices immediately. He touches Hiccup’s face, runs a hand over his cheek. “What’s wrong, Hic?”

“Nothing,” Hiccup mutters and tries to make himself be still because he can’t bear those blue eyes.

But Jack pushes – Jack insists. Jack is worried, and nothing can break Hiccup’s heart faster than that. He can’t stop trembling.

“You’re just so gorgeous,” he says. He tries flattery.

Jack presses his forehead to Hiccup’s and says, “That’s not it. I’ve seen your Jack-is-so-hot shakes. This is different.”

Hiccup buries his head in Jack’s shoulder and says, “You’re just so gorgeous … and I don’t deserve it.”

It’s the tiniest corner of the whirlwind of thoughts, just a few iron shavings off the side of the weight in his heart. One scale on the whole dragon of problems. But it’s enough that Jack grips him tight and holds him close, and in a shaky voice says, “Hiccup, don’t ever say that. Don’t even think it.”

Hiccup shakes his head – he can’t not think it. What's more, he doesn't just think it, he  _feels_ it. He  _knows_ it.

Jack pushes him back and lifts Hiccup’s face so they’re eye to eye. His face is serious, his eyes full of worry. “Don’t ever think it,” he says. “Hiccup, you’re wonderful and amazing and you deserve everything I can give you. Promise me you won’t think that anymore.”

But Hiccup can’t promise. “I’m too selfish,” he whispers. He’s more than just selfish. He’s jealous. Greedy. He wants too much.

“Selfish?” Jack asks. “Hic, where is this coming from?”

“I’m too greedy,” Hiccup says, because he can’t stop anymore. “I want you too much. I’m frantic when I think I might lose you. I … I can’t stop myself being jealous when you talk to other people. It’s not fair to you, I know. It’s not rational. I shouldn’t even think these things.”

He runs his hands through his hair, fingers tangling in the brown strands, and clutches his hair so the roots pull against his scalp, very nearly painful.

Jack grabs his hands and tries to pull them away, tries to untangle them so none of Hiccup's brown hair comes out with them.

“Hiccup, oh gods, I’m so sorry,” he said. “Hiccup, I didn’t know.”

Hiccup shakes his head. “No, don’t be sorry,” he says. “Don’t be sorry, please, Jack, don’t be sorry. It’s me. It’s all me, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you, please don’t be sorry…”

He trails off and then he starts to sob. Jack holds him and whispers things that aren’t true – that it’s not Hiccup’s fault at all, that he should have asked, should have known, that Hiccup shouldn’t feel guilty, and shouldn’t feel bad. But he says them so sincerely, like he really believes every word, and Hiccup wishes he could make himself believe it as much as Jack believes.

“I don’t deserve you either,” Jack says quietly.

“What?” Hiccup asks, horrified. “No, Jack, that’s not true at all!”

Jack smiles. “So if I’m wrong about that, maybe you’re wrong, too.”

Hiccup bites his lip. “But I …” he says

“But nothing.” Jack puts a finger on his lips. “Hiccup, we both think things that we would never do. I wish sometimes that I could tear you away from Toothless because you two are so close and I feel like I’ll never have that with you. But that’s not right, either – I’ll have something different with you and it will be just as important. Right?”

“Of course,” Hiccup says, immediately. “I could never think of giving up either of you.”

“Exactly. And your friendship with Toothless doesn’t have any bearing on your feelings for me.”

“Of course,” Hiccup says again.

“So … do you love me?” Jack asks.

Hiccup is so shocked at the question that he falters. “Jack … Jack, I love you so much I don’t know what to do with it all. How could you ask that?”

Jack’s face softens. “Just the way I love you,” he says. “So let’s agree that we deserve each other, alright?”

Hiccup nods. “I’ll … I’ll try to stop being so … to stop thinking …” he trails off.

“So will I,” Jack said. “We’ll work on it together.”

Hiccup twines his fingers with Jack’s. “Alright,” he says.

 

~

 

In the morning, Hiccup wraps an arm around Jack’s waist and whispers “Don’t go.”

This time, Jack just nods, and stays.


	4. Sloth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sloth  
> No content warnings
> 
> Hiccup needs to learn that sometimes it's better not to keep working. Takes place in the Time Flies modern AU, but you don't need to have read Time Flies to understand this.

Hiccup looked blearily at the clock. Only 3. The sun was still up outside, streaming bright through his window onto the desk with the textbook and practice exam he’d only barely looked at, and ran a hand through his hair.

He hadn’t slept. But his exam was in less than a week, and it was a morning exam, so he couldn’t afford to sleep now. If he slept now, he might not get his sleeping pattern back on track before then, and he’d take the exam tired and unprepared.

_Just six more hours_ , he told himself. _Then I’ll sleep._

He groaned. Six hours still sounded like a horribly long time.

Maybe five hours.

If he could last five hours.

He stretched, arms above his head, and tried to shake some thought back into his head. Alright. Practice exam.

He downed the rest of his coffee, feeling the jolt of the caffeine in his chest, nearly painful. It did nothing to wake him up. Hiccup suspected he had passed beyond caffeine a while back.

One question. Two. He didn’t check the answers – he wasn’t even sure he’d actually answered the question that was asked. He would check the answers tomorrow, when he felt a little more up to the task.

Three questions done.

“HEY!”

He jumped, and looked over at his window. Jack was sitting on the sill, rapping on the glass.

Hiccup hurried over and opened up the window. “Jack, what are you doing?”

“I told you yesterday I’d come over,” Jack said. “I’ve been sitting out there for ten minutes already! I knew you enjoyed your course, but that’s a bit ridiculous.” He gave Hiccup a bright grin, and Hiccup groaned and rubbed his eyes. He’d completely forgotten that Jack was coming to visit.

“Sorry,” he said.

Jack closed the window behind him and leaned his staff on the wall. He looked closer at Hiccup.

“Jeez, Hic, you look horrible.”

“Sorry,” Hiccup said again, and went to sit back down at the desk, starting on the questions again.

Jack pulled the second chair over and leaned on Hiccup, conjuring snowflakes to melt on the carpet as Hiccup worked.

After a while, Jack looked over. “Hic, you alright?”

“Yeah,” Hiccup said. “Just thinking.”

“You really do look horrible.”

“Thanks, Jack. I feel great about myself now.”

Jack ignored his sarcasm. “Did you forget to sleep again?”

“Maybe.”

“Hiccup …”

“You forget to sleep all the time!” Hiccup protested.

“Yeah,” Jack said. “But I don’t actually need sleep to live.” He jumped up on the desk. Hiccup just barely got his hands out of the way as Jack sat on his practice exam.

“Jack,” he said, and tried to pull the paper out from underneath his legs.

“I’m calling it here,” Jack said. “You’ve studied enough for one day.”

“I’ve barely done anything! Jack, get off the paper!”

“Nope.”

“Jack …” Hiccup gave up, throwing his pencil down on the table. “What are you doing?”

“It seems to work for cats,” Jack said.

“You’re a bit bigger than a cat,” Hiccup said.

“So it’s harder to pick me up,” Jack pointed out. “Win-win.”

Hiccup shook his head and scratched underneath Jack’s chin. Jack closed his eyes and rolled his tongue, mimicking a purring sound.

“Now go to bed, or I’ll bite your fingers,” he said.

“I haven’t finished my practice exam,” Hiccup said.

“You can finish it tomorrow.”

“But tomorrow I need to …”

“Are you really going to absorb any information when you’re this tired?” Jack asked pointedly, running a finger over the dark circle under Hiccup’s eye.

Hiccup hesitated.

“Or do I need to bribe Toothless again?”

Hiccup sighed. “No,” he admitted. “Fine.”

He let Jack set up the laptop to play a movie – he was too tired to care which one – while he changed into his pyjamas.

He settled onto the bed and Jack settled in behind him, curling up close to Hiccup and wrapping an arm around him, watching the movie screen through Hiccup’s hair.

“Can you see?” Hiccup asked.

“Just fine.” Jack kissed his head. “Go to sleep, you dork.”

Hiccup chuckled.

Five minutes into the movie, Hiccup shifted uncomfortably. “I should be working,” he said sleepily. “It feels wrong not to be doing anything.”

“Just sleep,” Jack said. “Sometimes you need to not do anything for a while. It’s important.”

“You sure about that?” Hiccup knew Jack was right – he was looking more for reassurance than proof.”

“Absolutely,” Jack said. “Guardians know these things.”

_Well_ , Hiccup thought as he dozed off. _The exam will still be there in the morning_.


	5. Wrath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No content warnings
> 
> Jack doesn't get angry often. Luckily his boyfriend, Hiccup, knows the feeling well and has a few ideas to help out.

“Do you think the Man in the Moon will ever say something to me?”

Jamie looked so innocent as he asked it. As well he should – it was a completely innocent question. And yet …

Jack plastered his usual bright smile across his face, said, “Maybe, kiddo. You never know,” and ruffled Jamie’s hair.

A few minutes later, he excused himself and started on home to Berk. It was ridiculous how sometimes a simple comment could ruin his mood, but there it was.

He kicked a rock on the path. It didn’t bother him, he could have sworn it had been years – centuries – since the Man in the Moon had last been a sore spot for him. But sometimes. Just sometimes.

Jack spun gently as he flew, aiming for the clouds and dragging his staff through them, making patterns. It was daytime still, and he was very grateful for that.

He loved Hiccup dearly, but sometimes he knew he only stayed indoors and in their bed all night because he didn’t want to be outside, where the Man in the Moon would be watching him. And that was what irked him the most. It was frustrating. No – it made him _angry_ , an emotion that had once seemed so alien to him that it had taken him centuries to place it. He was fun. Smiles. Snowballs and funtimes. Anger didn’t sit well with him. It made him restless and uncomfortable.

He and Hiccup would go out and do something. Maybe they would go flying.

Flying with Hiccup solved everything.

 

~

 

“No buts, Hiccup! You are the future chief and by Thor, you will come back to the village for weekends!”

Hiccup hung up and threw the phone onto his bed, where it bounced off his pillow and then his headboard with a solid, yet strangely unsatisfying, _thunk_.

No, that wasn’t nearly satisfying enough. He stood up and walked around, trying to somehow shake the frustration out of his limbs. It didn’t work, it never did, but for some reason, when he got angry, especially with his father, he couldn’t just sit still.

Would the workshop still be open? Almost certainly. He started to gather up his notebooks.

_Don’t think about it_ , he told himself. _You’ll just make it worse. Time to go and finish that project._

Hiccup could really lose himself in a sculpture right now. He was more than used to anger, frustration, useless, pent-up rage. Once it was flying and blacksmithing that calmed him down. Now it was sculptures, art and engineering projects, and of course still flying, but he so rarely got time to go out on Toothless nowadays.

He left a note for Jack on the bench, saying he’d be home late, just in case the winter spirit decided to pay him a visit. But he hadn’t finished it before there was a knock on the door.

 

~

 

As Hiccup opened the door, Jack immediately spotted the notebooks under Hiccup’s arm and his walking boots on his feet and his heart sank. But he leaned on his staff and covered it with a smile.

“Oops,” he said. “Looks like I’m interrupting.”

“No,” Hiccup said, hurrying to put the books away on the table while also holding open the door and shoving his shoes to one side.

“No, you were off somewhere,” Jack pressed.

“Just going to work on my final project for a while,” Hiccup said.

“Oh,” Jack said. “At this time of night?”

“Jack, just come inside.”

Jack knew that tone of voice. Seemed like Hiccup’s day had been worse than his. He leaned his staff near the door and sat down on the little table.

“Want to talk about it?” Jack asked, resting his feet on the chair and turning to face Hiccup.

“No,” Hiccup said.

“Yes, you do,” Jack said.

Hiccup sighed, and then muttered, “Phone call from Dad.”

“So he’s figured out how to work that thing?” Jack asked flippantly. No dice. Hiccup glared at him.

“Sorry,” Jack said. “Anything new, or …?”

“Same old,” Hiccup said. He drew himself up and squared his shoulders, deepening his voice. “I should come home to Berk because I’m going to be Chief and don’t I know I’m abandoning my responsibilities.” His impression of his father, as usual, was uncanny.

Jack nodded.

Hiccup looked up. “What about you?”

Jack tried a confused grin. “What do you mean? I’ve been at Burgess all day!”

“Too bad,” Hiccup said. “You shouldn’t have let me get to know you so well. You don’t do nervous unless you’re trying to hide something.”

Jack sighed. “Guess that was a mistake, huh?”

“Yup, big mistake. But choices have consequences, so now you have to tell me what’s wrong.”

Jack rubbed his forehead, using his hand to obscure his face from Hiccup. “Nothing serious,” he muttered.

Hiccup watched him for a moment, and then said, “They mentioned the Man in the Moon, didn’t they?”

“How did you know?” Jack groaned, though he supposed it was a slightly silly question.

“Jack, you only have one button but it’s a big, red, glowing one.”

Jack snorted. “Alright, I deserved that one.”

Hiccup stood up and went to the kitchen. “I’m making tea,” he said, and started to fiddle with mugs and teabags.

“No, thanks,” Jack said. “If you’ve still got that soda though …”

“It’s definitely flat by now,” Hiccup warned.

“I don’t really care.”

Hiccup put one of the mugs away and pulled out a glass, pouring Jack a glass of soda with barely any fizz, and passed it over.

He tapped the bench as he waited for the kettle to boil. Jack watched him, then turned to face him fully, sitting cross-legged on the table, soda glass by his side.

“You can go out and do your project,” he said.

“I’ll be fine once I have my tea,” Hiccup said, a little shortly.

“Such an old man,” Jack joked, but again Hiccup didn’t seem to register the humour.

Hiccup sprang over as the kettle boiled as if he’d been startled by it. Jack watched as he prepared the tea and came to sit down at the table.

“Sorry,” Jack said. “I should be trying to cheer you up. Want to talk about it?”

Hiccup shook his head. “No, I’d prefer not to. And what are you talking about, you should be trying to cheer me up? I should be cheering you up just as much.”

“But I shouldn’t even be upset,” Jack said. “It was only a mention. I shouldn’t be so upset.”

Hiccup rested his free hand on Jack’s knee while he blew onto his tea. “Yes, you should,” he said.

Jack opened and closed his hands a few times. “I can’t make it go away,” he said.

Hiccup tapped the side of his mug. “I know the feeling,” he said. “Like it’s knocking around in your chest but every time you try to let it out, it just gets bigger?”

Jack had to stop and think about that for a few moments, unable to quite process how accurate Hiccup’s description had been. “Yeah,” he said. “Wait, you feel that _regularly_?”

Hiccup shrugged. “Guess so,” he said.

Jack slipped off the table and into Hiccup’s lap, slightly sideways so he could have an arm around Hiccup while Hiccup drank his tea.

“How do you do it?” Jack asked. “I just can’t … I get so angry. What do you do with it all?”

Hiccup shrugged. “The forge used to be good for that,” he said, a little mournfully. “And flying.”

“We could go flying,” Jack said.

Hiccup looked over at him, grinned, and gave him a peck on the cheek. “I’ve got a better idea. Come on.” And he picked Jack up bridal-style, carrying him to the door, ignoring Jack’s surprised protests.

 

~

 

Hiccup swore loudly in surprise as a lump of wet clay came shooting across the room, knocking his carefully-crafted statue base off the pottery wheel.

“Uh,” Jack said.

Hiccup sighed and went to pick their clay up off the floor. Thank goodness the floor was mostly clean. “Jack,” he sighed. “How?”

“Sorry,” Jack said. “And I honestly don’t know.”

Hiccup dumped Jack’s clay back on the wheel and stopped for a moment to regard his boyfriend.

“Jack,” Hiccup asked, bending over. “How did you get it all over your face.”

He tried to scrub off some of the drying clay, but his hands were covered, and he only made it worse.

“Hiccup,” Jack complained, trying to pull away from the clay-covered hand.

Hiccup grinned, kissed Jack’s forehead instead (and then the little splash of clay on his nose for good measure) and went back to his own wheel.

“Sorry about your stand,” Jack muttered.

“It’s fine. It’s not that difficult. Besides, that was pretty funny.”

They shared a quick grin before Hiccup got his wheel started back up.

Once the stand was in the kiln, Hiccup watched Jack for a while as his boyfriend ran his hands up and down the shapeless clay.

“What are you making?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “Probably nothing.”

“Need a suggestion?”

Jack shook his head. “Nah, let’s just go home. This was enough.”

Hiccup nodded. Yes. They were both covered in clay and the room was chilly and it was dark outside, but as the wheel slowed to a stop and Jack put the clay aside, as they joined hands – both so completely filthy that it didn’t really matter – for the walk home Hiccup knew he was right. This was enough.


	6. Envy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings
> 
> This occurs in the Time Flies AU with Jack soon after becoming Jack Frost in Berk just pre-HtTYD 2.  
> This is what might have happened were there less plot in Time Flies.

Jack waited on the rooftop for Hiccup like he did every morning. The moon set somewhere far off behind him – but he didn’t care about that. The sunrise was too beautiful to care about that.

He heard Toothless start to move around inside the hut, and then Hiccup start to stir. He looked at the horizon and pretended he hadn’t been straining to hear what was going on inside.

Hiccup yawned and opened the door, and Toothless followed him out of the hut.

“Morning,” he said.

“Morning,” Jack said, jumping down off the roof and strolling along beside Hiccup towards the dining hall. “Sleep well?”

Hiccup shrugged. “I suppose,” he said.

Jack guessed that meant ‘no’. He was starting to learn how Hiccup communicated, and when he said one thing and meant entirely another.

Hiccup walked slowly and Jack slowed to match him, lifting his feet high as he walked, and resting his arms over the staff lying across his shoulders. He didn’t mind going slowly.

Because the sooner they got to the dining hall, the sooner …

Astrid was already at the table, of course. So was Snotlout.

Hiccup cast a glance at Jack with a small smile – apologetic? Or just a little reminder, for what it was worth, that Hiccup could see him? – and went to sit with his friend. Jack took up his customary place in the rafters, looking down at them.

Their conversation progressed smoothly, Hiccup throwing glances up at Jack when he could without being noticed. Jack gave him a little wave back, and Hiccup had to smother his smile to avoid questions.

Then Astrid said something and Hiccup laughed for real and although it was not fair, Jack couldn’t help the way his mood soured and curdled in his chest. He leaned back against the rafter and tried not to listen to the conversation anymore.

 

~

 

This time, Hiccup didn’t slip away from the breakfast hall early to go to Toothless like usual – Astrid had said something about dragon training in the forest, and the twins had taken her side that Hiccup should come, and Jack knew as soon as Fishlegs chimed in a nervous but excited “You should come and show us that trick again, Hiccup!” that Hiccup wouldn’t have a choice but to go with them.

Jack floated down out of the rafters and onto the ground, joining seamlessly onto the tail of the group of Vikings as they rushed towards the dragon stables, cursing and racing each other all the way. He tried to find his usual grin, his usual appreciation for the lighthearted fun the group had together. Even Hiccup had a faint chuckle, though a little distant, as though he appreciated the joke but his mind was elsewhere.

It was on flying, Jack knew. Flying and Toothless and perhaps something else – the trick Fishlegs mentioned, or a new design. Hiccup, he’d realised, never had his mind completely in the same place his body was. Except, of course, when flying. He wondered if that was why the lanky Viking loved flying so much. A chance for mind and body to finally be together.

Jack kept up easily and lazily with the group, flying along beside them.

“Hiccup, keep up!” Astrid told Hiccup, who was reddening from the exertion. “Honestly, you spend far too much time in the saddle and not enough time on your feet.”

“Yeah, you should be more like me and Tuffnut,” Snotlout said, turning and jogging backwards so Hiccup could get the full effect of the pose he struck as he said it. “Faster than dragons, and probably stronger, too! Why do we need to ride dragons again?”

“Bet he isn’t going to offer to carry you,” Jack said to Hiccup, hoping for a smile from the Viking.

“So, that’s an offer to carry me the rest of the way to the stables, isn’t it?” Hiccup asked, with a glance and a quick wink at Jack.

“You’re training us at dragon flying,” Tuffnut said. “You should be thanking us for offering to train you at the noble Viking art of running.”

They were laughing. Joking. When he’d first met Hiccup here, he’d been happy for the second-hand attention from Hiccup relaying his jokes to the others. It had felt closer to being a part of the conversation than anything else had so far, ever. But it wasn’t enough anymore. The laughter at something he’d said now aimed at someone else made him feel more invisible than he ever had before he’d met Hiccup.

He hated that. He couldn’t bear to be parted from Hiccup, but every conversation he was nearly but not quite a part of tore another little hole in his heart.

No – he had to ignore that. When he had Hiccup to himself, he could forget about all of this. When he had to share Hiccup, he’d just have to learn to share. That was what good friends did, right? He couldn’t just ask Hiccup to never talk to his friends again, and spend every day with an invisible winter spirit alone.

He’d just have to find some way to put up with it.

But it was going to be hard. He wanted what Hiccup had so damn much it nearly made him forget to breathe.

 

~

 

Hiccup brushed his brown hair away from his forehead, deliberately dawdling over Toothless’s saddle. The others finished, laughed at him for “cooing” over his dragon, and left for other things.

Jack leaned against a wall. This, too, was ritual for them, Hiccup waiting until everyone else was gone before so much as acknowledging Jack.

It made sense, Jack told himself. It was logical.

It was painful.

“You look put out,” Hiccup said, so bluntly that Jack initially thought he was talking to Toothless.

“Sorry,” Jack said. “I didn’t mean to.”

Hiccup raised an eyebrow. “That was a non-answer,” he said, without accusation, as if noting that Jack’s cloak was brown.

“It was a perfect answer,” Jack said.

“Thanks for caring, Hiccup,” Hiccup said, in a gentle mockery of Jack’s voice. “I sure appreciate your asking, and I would like to take this opportunity to reassure you that you haven’t done anything stupid or anything and maybe talk about my problems so I can fix them instead of looking mournful about them.”

Jack pressed his lips together. Hiccup’s impression was so exaggerated and comical that it took all the sting out of the words, except the sting that Jack put into them himself.

Hiccup grinned at Jack, as though expecting Jack to return it.

Jack did not.

“No?” Hiccup asked. “Some other time, I guess. Nice comeback, by the way – before with Snotlout.”

“Thanks,” Jack said bitterly.

Hiccup stood up and put his hands on his hips. “Now I know something’s wrong,” he said. “You’re never modest.”

There was a long pause.

“Sorry,” Hiccup said quietly, and absently scratched Toothless’s ear flaps. “I keep taking the credit for your jokes. I feel guilty about it.”

“No!” Jack blurted. “No, Hiccup, that isn’t …”

Wasn’t it?

Jack tried again. “I don’t mind you taking the credit,” he said. “You can have the credit for everything I say, I don’t mind. I just wish I had the attention that you have.”

Hiccup nodded, hand pausing a moment before resuming scratching Toothless. “Let’s go flying just us two tomorrow,” he said. “We can pretend everyone on Berk can see you. Nobody has to come with us or know.”

Jack grinned. “Sure,” he said, while his mind screamed at him that he’d done it now, he’d made Hiccup choose. Just a day would never be enough, he knew, no matter how many days there were. Eventually he’d want more and then he’d want so much that Hiccup couldn’t give it all to him. Not on his own. Then … he’d just hang around wanting what Hiccup had forever.

 

~

 

Jack left Hiccup at his hut that evening. He paused, put his hand on the door, and then, without looking back, flew away.

Screw where the Man in the Moon wanted him to be. He couldn’t stay another minute in Berk.

Maybe being seen wasn’t such a great thing after all.


	7. Pride

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings
> 
> Hiccup and Stoick can both be stubborn. But it's Christmas, and Stoick enlists Jack's help to make amends.  
> Inspired by this: http://emmalennyeddie.tumblr.com/post/154254285182/on-the-second-day-of-snoggletog-my-true-love-gave

“First day of Christmas visit, Dad,” Hiccup said, holding one finger up. “First day. I wish I could say that was a new record.”

He strode towards the door.

“Where are you going, Hiccup?” Stoick called after him.

“Shower,” Hiccup said curtly. “Long trip.”

Jack winced.

The two of them – Jack and Stoick – sat in Stoick’s loungeroom, glancing sidelong at each other.

Jack rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, and Stoick rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Sorry, Jack,” Stoick said.

Jack shrugged. “No big deal,” he said. “I know he can be stubborn.”

Stoick smiled a sad smile that crinkled his eyes. “Nice of you to say, Jack,” he said. “But we both know where he gets it from. Gobber loves reminding us.”

Jack hummed noncommittally, looking at the door Hiccup had slammed behind him.

There was another awkward silence. Jack didn’t know what to say.

Stoick took a breath, then leaned forward, staring at his hands, fingers interlocking.

“Hm?” Jack asked, before registering that Stoick was trying to broach an awkward topic, and suddenly wished he’d sounded like he was paying actual attention.

“Oh, um,” Stoick said, “I was … hoping. Maybe you could, you know. Give me a few pointers?”

“Pointers?” Jack asked, stunned.

“You’re my son’s boyfriend,” Stoick said. “You know him well by now.”

Jack nodded. “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t really know what to say, except that he knows what he’s doing. All he wants is for you to trust him a little more.”

Stoick sighed. “I know,” he said. “I should know. I just … I used to say that I was the sort of man who always knew what he had to be, and Hiccup was not that person. He is that person now. I’m so proud of him. But I don’t know where he’s heading to, and that makes me nervous.”

Jack looked at Stoick for a while. He’d had his private opinions about the relationship between his lovely, gorgeous, dense boyfriend and said boyfriend’s father for a long time, but he’d never expected to actually be in this position.

“I have an idea,” he said. “It’s just a start, but …”

 

~

 

On Christmas morning, family and friends gathered around the tree, Astrid distributed the presents. Jack noticed that the one originally marked “For Hiccup – Stoick” had been replaced with a rather smaller one, oddly shaped and hastily wrapped.

He nudged Hiccup when Astrid passed the present over, and Hiccup gave him a puzzled look.

He unwrapped the parcel to find …

A helmet.

He looked up at his father, and Jack bit his lip. Had this been a good idea? Hiccup looked nothing more than … hurt.

“Dad,” Hiccup said. “More of your “family heirlooms”?”

“Paperweight,” Stoick said, hiding his embarrassed face in his voluminous beard. “Thought it would be useful, you know, with your studies. Lots of … lots of paper, in studying. Better you get use out of it than I keep it in that old attic. You take that with you and … you use it for whatever seems to fit.”

Hiccup seemed unsure what to do with his face as he held the helmet tight. Then he crossed the room in three steps, and wrapped his arms around his father.

“Thanks, Dad,” he said.

“You’re welcome. Merry Christmas, son.”

On the other side of the room, Astrid nudged Jack. “Well done.”

Jack shrugged her off and grinned. “Something, something, Christmas spirit,” he said. “Now let’s eat too much and play games in the backyard like a normal family.”

Astrid chuckled. Jack and Stoick shared a quick look, and Jack felt his heart melt for his boyfriend just a little as, over Hiccup’s shoulder, Stoick gave him the happiest smile Jack had ever seen.


End file.
